


Inhale, Exhale

by amandaskankovich



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:59:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1310704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaskankovich/pseuds/amandaskankovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end it’s strange how easy it is to slip into a role you’ve been running away from for as long as you could remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inhale, Exhale

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for anxiety.

In the end it’s strange how easy it is to slip into a role you’ve been running away from for as long as you could remember. But you do it and yeah it’s hard but you do it because there’s nothing else. There’s nothing as important as this job that is yours now.  
As this person in your life.   
This person that is your person.  
Anyway the day you two moved out she gave you this look that said: I’m trusting you with him.  
You’re not used to being trusted.   
You’re not used to receiving it. You’re sure as shit not used to giving it.  
It should feel like a burden shouldn’t it? Something too tight around your neck because isn’t that the way you were always taught to react to something like that?   
You let your guard down and then what are you? Something small and weak and vulnerable.  
There’s no room for that.  
Here’s how you survive in this world: You use your fists. You use your teeth. You cut, bite, stab, break.   
You beat them down and make them smaller and smaller.  
Until they’re smaller than you.  
And then they don’t fight anymore.  
They won’t pull that shit ever again.  
Anyway: You wake up and he’s crying.   
This happens sometimes.  
Sometimes he wakes up and you’re crying.  
That happens sometimes.  
Once after she died you woke up crying.  
You got out of bed crying.  
You didn’t even realize it. It was the strangest thing.  
Waking up and your face is wet. You thought maybe you had a fever.  
But it’s not like you felt sick right?   
There was just this thing inside your chest. This ball of ache right there.  
Sometimes you wake up scared. You don’t even know why it still happens and it’s fucking embarrasing but you forget.  
And then in the dark you’re fighting him off again. It’s really not fucking fair.   
You can’t even remember what color your mom’s eyes were if you’re not looking at a picture when the answer is always: same as yours. Same as your sister’s.   
Always the same.  
But you can remember his breath.  
You can smell it right there.  
You don’t even keep booze in the house anymore because at a certain point here’s the thing: He’ll be having a bad week. Because you were stupid and let his pills run out. The pharmacy closed at five and you were fucking stupid. So he only has so many until Monday. Or you had to send the money to her so you’re going to be a little short. You couldn’t be late with that because one time you did and then there she was. Standing in front of the apartment door with…so that’s not something you can let slip. Once the lights were out for five days but that money got sent.  
(This is your responsibility. You are fucking it up. You are fucking it up.)  
You can’t drink it all: He needs you.  
You can’t let him drink it all: He needs not to.  
So just don’t have it in the apartment. That simple.  
But you can smell it in your sleep.   
You can taste blood in your mouth because you chewed your lip raw.  
Or there’s salt all over his face because he is crying about something he still can’t really tell you about. He doesn’t know how to just tell it. The words kind of fall out of his mouth. They fall over each other. He’s crying into your shoulder.  
This is a burden right? This is the definition of a burden right?  
Your mother was in denial that she was going to die pretty much until the second she dropped dead.  
They all were.  
Which is why your dad still expected things like his eggs in the morning.  
Her body at night.  
One time you came home and your mom was sitting on the toilet crying.  
Not loud but…  
Your dad was downstairs drinking a beer and watching tv.  
She just looked at you.  
"I can’t…get up."  
And when you walked over to her and let her put her arm around your shoulder and she was so light and she was so pale.  
Her skin was so hot.  
"Thank you," she said leaning her head on your shoulder. She’d been sitting like that for almost an hour.   
"When the fuck is dinner!?" Your dad yelled up the stairs.  
It’s not always bad.  
It’s not.  
And even the bad parts it’s hard to explain but even when he’s crying or he can’t sleep or he’s yelling about things you don’t understand and you’re trying so hard to understand how this is your life.  
Even when he wakes up to something like you in the bathroom spitting blood out of your mouth that you put there even then…  
You look at him sometimes and you think you can’t breathe. You’re not sure how to describe it. Sometimes you put your face into his neck and you just keep it there for as long as he’ll let you. Sometimes when it’s hard and you feel like you’re suffocating because you forgot again where you are and where you live now this thing happens where he reaches out and he wraps his arms around your waist. He puts his face down into the back of your neck.  
You can feel him breathing in and out and slow and steady and you make your breathing match his.  
Sometimes you think you can’t breathe and he shows you how: does that make it clear enough for you?   
"I’m trusting you with him." She’d said.  
You’re still not sure what that means but when she said it she was looking you right in the eye and you knew that she was giving you something.   
You weren’t used to that and you’re still not people just taking a part of themselves and handing it to you.   
You guess it should make sense because of him but he’s the fucking exception. To the rule. To the human race.  
You will give him every part of you good, bad or ugly and there’s so much ugly.  
But you give it and he takes it.  
You take it he gives it.  
You’re vampires in that way but you have no other fucking clue how to deal with him. This is how you love apparently.   
Overpowering, smothering, off putting, suffocating.  
That’s probably what it should feel like.  
Why doesn't it?  
In your sister’s kitchen that used to be your kitchen there’s a child’s drawing of some weird misshapen thing Mandy tells you is a dog.  
And underneath that weird misshapen animal in a child’s barely understandable crayon it’s written: Happy Bithday Aunt Maandy!!!  
You saw this and you stared at it for a good five minutes.  
Then you told her you had to leave.  
You got on a bus and you went straight home and he was fine that day.  
It was a good day for him so leave it to you to shit all over it right? With your fucking shit.  
But you couldn't breathe.  
You just couldn't breathe.  
And you were shaking and when the fuck had that started.  
There was something happening in your chest. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t breathe.  
You sat down on the floor of your living room forgetting how to breathe and just waiting to die.  
But he was there.  
He walked right over to you.  
He took your hands in his and he looked you in the eyes.  
Taking one deep breath and then letting it out.  
Inhale, exhale.  
Showing you how.


End file.
